[Friday @ 8:00pm – 10:00pm, Holden Chapel]
Margaret Schedel, Sofya Yuditskaya, Jess Rowland, Susie Green, and Alyssa Wixson with EMKVLT performers
Devised Improvisation
Abstract
EMKVLT is a band led by three womxn who use the physical properties of the electromagnetic spectrum to create installations, performances and recordings. Using electronic feedback, audio speakers, various kinds of microphones/pickups, and resonant objects of all shapes and kinds, we summon the feminine spirit of electromagnetism, aka the Goddess of the Electronic Medium. Drawing upon the history of electronic sound and seance, as well as the cutting edge technologies of artificial intelligence and physical computing, we create embodied sonic experiences. We have a flexible membership inclusive to all peoples who are willing to open themselves up to this spirit. In terms of current trends in audio technology, we invoke a feminist response to the masculinization of the music industry, audio engineering, and to the artistic spaces of sound arts in general. Our newest instruments, the Bareëmins, functions as a score via the antenna embedded in the image on the page.
Biographies
Formerly known as Bunker, EMKVLT consists of Sofya Yuditskaya, Margaret Schedel and Jess Rowland. They are a regular fixture on the New York City improvisation scene, with performances at H0L0, Harvestworks, Improvisation Summit, Putty’s Corination, NYU, Stony Brook and SummerCamp. Individually the musicians have internationally recognized careers; EMKVLT is the intersection of our interests and identities. EMKVLT functions as the core of our open ensemble, The International Witch Collective.
Patrick Hartono
Ciung Wanara (2023) for audiovisual performance
Abstract
This piece takes a novel approach to audiovisual composition by exploring the use of hand gestures as a primary means of interaction and compositional method. The approach is based on the adaptation of the Sabetan technique of Indonesia Wayang Kulit, a traditional form of shadow puppetry. The goal is to demonstrate embodied audio-visual interaction through this novel approach. Sabetan technique is expressive gestures executed by the puppeteer through the animated actions of the puppets in a wayang performance. These gestures are in conformity with the characterization and ambience of the scene. In the context of this piece, the embodied interaction can be characterized as a performative act, with the simultaneous creation of audio and visual elements that respond to the performer’s gestural movements. This approach draws on Michael Chion’s concept of “added-value.” To facilitate this interaction, a choreographed hand movement was devised incorporating the gestural technique of “Sabetan.” This strategy serves as a mode for the performer to engage with the computer in real-time during the performance, utilizing a depth camera with a machine learning hand recognition algorithm to capture the performer’s kinesthetic hand movements. This concept was incorporated into the development of an interactive music system for Gestural-Based Audiovisual Composition, Ciung Wanara, as part of my doctoral research. I devised an interactive music system that integrates the Sabetan technique of Wayang Kulit (leather shadow puppetry) and employs supervised machine learning algorithms to scrutinize gestural inputs from the performer. Additionally, the Polymorphism Sound SYNTHESIS method I developed during my doctoral research was implemented into the musical component of the system.
“Ciung Wanara” is an interactive audiovisual composition inspired by Indonesian shadow puppet battles. The performance takes a semantic approach, featuring two distinct rooster avatars that respond in real-time to the performer’s gestures. The performer uses two avatars controlled by their hand movements to recreate the tale of Ciung Wanara, a wise king and skilled cockfighter who triumphs over an evil sorcerer. The Sabetan technique of Indonesia Wayang Kulit and the FluComa machine learning library allows the performer to simultaneously generate and control digital sound synthesis, multi-channel spatialization, and visuals.
The presentation of two avatars with a clear narrative, generated by the performer’s hand gestures, creates a unique audio-visual experience not commonly seen in conventional forms of audiovisual composition. This leads to a uniquely immersive and interactive experience not only between the performer and composition but also with the audience.
Biography
Patrick Gunawan Hartono, born in Makassar, Indonesia in 1988, is an electroacoustic composer and audiovisual artist with a prestigious academic background. As a proud alumnus of the Rotterdam Conservatory, Patrick graduated Cum Laude with a BMus in Composition while pursuing a minor study at The Institute of Sonology. He continued his academic journey by earning an MMus in Sonic Arts from the University of London, Goldsmiths and completing a Live Electronic Course at IRCAM, Paris.
Intrigued by the intersection of technology and scientific methodologies, Patrick employs these tools to fuel his creative process. His artistic interests span 3-D sound spatialization, analog/digital synthesis, psychoacoustics, and visual music. Patrick’s innovative compositions often integrate traditional Indonesian musical instruments, computer-generated sounds and visuals, and field recordings, which he manipulates using mathematical rules, real-time interactions, and controlled random operations.
Patrick’s works have graced the international stage at renowned festivals and conferences, including ICMC, YCMF, WOCMAT, Sound Bridge Festival, ZKM, IRCAM, NYCEMF, Sound Image, ACL, Gaudeamus, Sonorities Festival (SARC), ACMC, BEAST, CCRMA (Stanford), KEAMSAC, NIME, iiicon (Harvard), Ars Electronica, and more.
Currently based in Melbourne, Australia, Patrick is pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Melbourne while actively engaging with the national and international computer music community.
Cecilia Suhr
Humanity: From Survival to Revival (2022) for audiovisual performance
Abstract
Humanity: From Survival to Revival is an award-winning (2023 Best of Competition Award from the Broadcast Education Association) interactive audio-visual performance work that depicts the transformation of the dystopian state of humanity to utopianism in both the visual and sonic realms by including the faces of live audiences as part of the multimedia performance. Not only do audiences play an interactive survival game via microphone (sound interactive), but the collaborative efforts are meant to represent saving humanity through collective transformation, healing, and renewal. In act one, audiences are asked to stand in front of the camera and contribute their facial images to build a digital gameboard. As their faces are added, they become a live electronic instrument by triggering the sound files. In act two, audiences are asked to play an interactive survival game based on their free speech. Audience members can either exhale a breath into the microphone, signifying giving CPR to another person to save a life, or they can say positive words into the microphone; speaking a positive word affirms the power of speech, imitating a scenario where people in crisis can lift other people’s spirits to help them stay alive. To encourage participation, when there is no sound from the audience member (no effort to save each other), the audience member’s face is randomly dropped from the screen to signal the demise. The sound going into the microphone further affects the faces by temporarily blurring them. In act three, the chaos gradually calms down, and those (audience’s faces) remaining on the screen are being transformed via real-time audio-visual interaction. In this act, improvisational performance on the Danso (Korean bamboo flute), singing bowl, and live electronics affect the visual content. In the final act, humanity revives and imagines the peak utopian state by building the 3-d digital model made out of audiences’ faces. The violin improvisation interacts with the rotation of the model and the intensity and shape of the light to represent utopia. (Credit: technical support and programming by Martin Ritter)
Biography
Cecilia Suhr is an intermedia artist and researcher, multi-instrumentalist (violin/cello/voice/piano/bamboo flute), multimedia composer, interaction designer, painter, author, and improviser. She has won multiple awards in the field of visual art, music, interactive media, and academic research, including the MacArthur Foundation, DML Research Grant Award, Pauline Oliveros Award from New Music Competition (IAWM), Silver Medal Winner from Cambridge Music Competition, Bronze Medal Winner from Global Music Awards, Best of Competition Winner in Interactive Media and Emerging Technologies from the BEA competition, Saint Michael Achievement Medal from International Juried Fine Arts Competition, etc. Her work has been featured in NYCEMF, ICMC, SEAMUS, Society of Composers, Amermman Biennial Symposium, Klingt Gut, etc., to name a few. She is the author of “Social Media and Music,”( Peter Lang Press) and “Evaluation and Credentialing in Digital Music Communities” (MIT Press). Currently, she is an Associate Professor at Miami University Regionals, Ohio.
Sabe
Mental Feedback Loop (2023), an audiovisual performance using voice and no-input mixing
Abstract
Mental feedback loop is an audiovisual performance using a no-input mixing and voice in real time. This abstract and introspective piece is a representation of anxiety that is generate by a self-critical conversation that turns into parasitic thoughts. Full of contrasts, it keeps both spectators on alert and force them at other times into the comfort of mental violence. Synchronized with the saturated voice and textured sounds, the black and white videos accentuate the screaming side of the piece. Abstract videos resemble will-o’-the-wisps, ephemeral little creatures. A parasitic idea like a Larsen effect is a feedback loop that is self -generated and feeds on itself once activated. The sounds from the no-input refer to this self-generated mental loop. The piece is punctuated with vocal textures and primal screams that surround the viewer of my inner state.
Biography
Sabe is an audiovisual performer artist from Canada. She uses her voice and a no-input mixing board as a compositional and live tool to create texture and synchronise them to her own textured videos. After graduating from Concordia University with a major in photography, she studied several aspects of tonal music, including guitar and multiple vocal techniques. She fell in love with digital music and enrolled in the D.E.S.S in digital music at the Université de Montréal. It is through sound textures that Sabe finds a great freedom of artistic expression. Her studies with the audiovisual artist Myriam Boucher since 2020 were a decisive moment in her artistic approach and therefore open a world of possibilities in which she joins her two passions, music and visual. Sabe draws on her personal experiences to express herself on various societal ills. In her performances, she connects sound and image to create intimate and abstract pieces in which she wants viewers to recognize themselves with their own life experience. Many have said that her creations are contrasted, raw and destabilizing.